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Solving the £100m retail data challenge

Explore how an Intelligent Digital approach powered New West End Company

A global icon. A £100m challenge

How would you make London’s West End and Mayfair the world’s number one retail and leisure district by 2020?

New West End Company has the goal to make London's West End - the area around Bond Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street - and Mayfair, a world-leader. They want to attract more people, encourage them to stay longer, and entice them to come back more often. All to reach £100m additional income by 2020.

They turned to PwC to help them use data and analytics to make it happen.

In just two weeks, we brought together new sources of data and advanced analytics, so they could make informed choices about where to invest and make improvements.

As you explore this story, take our interactive challenge and see how the data-driven decisions you make can help increase revenue. You might even find ways to beat the £100m target.

​Use our interactive tool below to see how Bond Street could generate an extra £100m.

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New West End CompanyHow would you raise£100m of additionalincome by 2020?

Increase trading hours from 8am to 10pm

Extending trading hours could increase revenue, as shops would be open longer for visitors. Longer hours means more staff to cover shifts, which means more jobs.

What does this mean for jobs in the area?

Extended trading hours means that shops will need more staff, to cover more shifts. Which means more jobs.

£34,700,000

Total raised so far: £34,700,000

Attract More Chinese Visitors

Over the last few years, more people are visiting the UK from China. Making it easier for Chinese tourists to visit the UK would potentially increase spending on Bond Street.

If more Chinese shoppers frequent the area, how will this affect retailers?

We know the Chinese over-index on spend, and they’re one of the highest spenders on the street. If London's West End can attract more Chinese to the area it could increase revenue significantly.

£6,300,000

Total raised so far: £41,000,000

Increased footfall from the opening of the Elizabeth Line

More people using the Elizabeth Line means more potential shoppers for Bond Street.

What needs to happen in the area to cope with more visitors?

With an estimated 60m more passengers coming to London's West End and Mayfair, there may need to be wider pavements, improved facilities and more food and beverage outlets.

£124,600,000

Total raised so far: £165,600,000

Increase the number of affluent shoppers to 7%

With more affluent shoppers, the majority of customers would still be within the 30-39 age group (41%) - and more than a third would be highly affluent.

If more affluent shoppers visit London's West End, how will this affect retailers?

The mix of luxury fashion, jewellery and watches is likely to remain most relevant to this affluent group. Retailers will have to ensure their product range still caters to shoppers outside of this category, too.

£32,000,000

Total raised so far: £197,000,000

You could raise £197,600,00in potential revenue for London's West End.
#PwCDataStories

This interactive is built for demo purposes only and based off of real data, not conclusive evidence or forecasting. All figures have been rounded up.

New West End CompanyHow would you raise £100m ofadditional income by 2020?

How much revenue can you raise by:Extending trading hours?

How much revenue can you raise by:Attracting more Chinese visitors?

How much revenue can you raise by:The Elizabeth Line increasing footfall?

Move the train to find out

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2019

2020

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How much revenue can you raise by:Attracting more affluent shoppers?

Slide the pin below to find out

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Question
What does this mean for jobs in the area?

Extended trading hours means that shops will need more staff, to cover more shifts. Which means more jobs.

If more Chinese shoppers frequent the area, how will this affect retailers?

We know the Chinese over-index on spend, and they’re one of the highest spenders on the street. If London's West End can attract more Chinese to the area it could increase revenue significantly.

What needs to happen in the area to cope with more visitors?

With an estimated 60m more passengers coming to London's West End and Mayfair, there may need to be wider pavements, improved facilities and more food and beverage outlets.

If more affluent shoppers visit London's West End, how will this affect retailers?

With the increase, a majority of customers would still be within the 30-39 age group (41%) - and more than a third would be highly affluent. The mix of luxury fashion, jewellery and watches is likely to remain most relevant to this affluent group. Retailers will have to ensure their product range still caters to shoppers outside of this category, too.

Total raised so far: £0

New West End Company
You've raised: £0
#PwCDataStories

This interactive is built for demo purposes only and based off of real data, not conclusive evidence or forecasting. All figures have been rounded up.

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Start with smarter data

Our starting point was to help New West End Company enhance the nature and quality of their data. They always had traditional sources - like on-street surveys and information from tax-free shopping providers. But these sources had limitations:

Bias and subjectivity

With on-street surveys, what people tell you will always involve a degree of personal opinion, and could be inaccurate or exaggerated.

Missing pieces

For example, data on tax-free shopping is valuable, but misses EU citizens, who aren’t eligible for refunds. Or people who spend under the minimum threshold to qualify for a refund. And it misses cultural differences that affect the data - people from certain countries tend not to apply for refunds.

Small sample sizes

On-street surveys only reach a few thousand people a year, which is a small number of visitors to London's West End and Mayfair and may not be representative of the visitors to the area.

Know more. See more. See ahead

We created a holistic view of customers shopping and visiting the street. We brought anonymised and aggregated data together including:

Mobile network data

Aggregate spend data

Global flight bookings data

This data enabled us to piece together a more insightful story and uncover the profile and preferences of visitors. Who was coming? Where were they coming from? What socio-economic class did they belong to? How much money did they spend? Where did they visit? Why did they visit? How long did they spend there?

From data to decisions. In two weeks

Better data uncovered insights that could drive tangible changes to enhance the customer experience. And it meant they could model different ‘what if?’ scenarios giving greater confidence in their decision making.

Speak the right language

Retailers need to serve customers from all over the world. But which languages are important for your sales associates to speak? Our data uncovered where the most important customers came from – and it’s wasn’t the obvious places. Card spend and travel data told us that a small number of people from specific countries spent huge sums of money. So retailers could shift staffing decisions to serve this valuable, less-visible group.

Know your busy times

Busy periods aren’t always when you think. The data showed that the busiest times were actually certain mid-week days. And it provided more accurate data about the busiest times of day, and busy seasons – again, not when you might expect. This meant retailers can staff their stores appropriately.

Plan ahead

Access to travel data meant that we could help build a picture of future tourist numbers. ​We can analyse with greater accuracy when people were likely to be visiting the UK, from which countries, and how many were going to be coming.

Our teams were able to help New West End Company reach the point of decision-making in just two weeks. In a very small amount of time, our data analysis created a more accurate, valid and reliable picture, helping retailers get an advantage in a tough marketplace.